


So That Others May Keep Them

by htebazytook



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hobbits, M/M, Post-Quest, Romance, Smut, The Shire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:38:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htebazytook/pseuds/htebazytook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."</p>
    </blockquote>





	So That Others May Keep Them

**Author's Note:**

> "It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."

**Title:** So That Others May Keep Them  
 **Author:** htebazytook  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Disclaimer:** *disclaims*  
 **Pairing:** Frodo/Sam  
 **Time Frame:** A post-Quest pre-Havens angst fest.  
 **Author's Notes:** "It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."

 

_Sam turns to him under the foreign yellow leaves and Frodo can't help but smile for a minute._

_Sam gets a hand on Frodo's knee, looks at him with unending concern. "Are you all right?"_

_"Really, Sam. Will nothing stop your fretting over me?"_

_Sam shrugs to himself. "It didn't quite reach your eyes, is all."_

_And just like that Frodo returns to his melancholy, something that's become easier and more natural than whatever had been his default state before. "It is hard to be entirely mirthful just yet, not after Moria."_

_"I don't know how many times I thought you were dead in that dreadful place, and on top of that Mr. Gandalf really _is_ gone." Sam's hand tightens on him, as if afraid Frodo could disappear at any second._

_The light—the very air of this place is yellow and thick with magic, this warm comforting pillow of atmosphere to lean back into and let Frodo's mind be at peace for a while._

_They're staring at one another, and Frodo feels more than sees Sam leaning slowly closer, and when their lips touch sweetly briefly Frodo's frozen with relief at it._

_Sam pulls back slightly and Frodo releases a shaky breath over his parted lips. "Sir, I'm sor—"_

_But Frodo wishes he wouldn't be–he catches Sam by the front of his shirt when he starts to escape and presses their mouths together in a rush. Sam makes a surprised sound but adapts quickly, kisses back with fervor and his hands holding Frodo's tight between them._

But Frodo certainly doesn't think of that, sitting here watching Sam kiss Rosie just as sweetly and blushing just as much.

Frodo's been staring at the clustered flowers of the mallorn for an untold stretch of time when from somewhere in the distance comes the sound of songs and merriment.

The mallorn makes the Party Field nearly as magical as Lothlórien, but as soon as he stops looking up at it the illusion's shattered by the familiar hills and Hill and people.

When Frodo looks around himself, at the people and the clean earthy air and the easy traditions, he recognizes that he must have belonged to at all once upon a time, but now it seems impossible to place himself there again. He's unable to shake off the feeling of being a passive onlooker in a dream–nothing he says carries any weight in this imagined world, and to its inhabitants he's utterly invisible.

"Hullo, Mr. Frodo!"

Except apparently to Rosie.

"Hullo," Frodo says. 

She'd always been exceptionally radiant for a hobbit lass, but it was an undeniably rustic beauty, simple and sweet and the sort of which hobbits gravitated toward. She wasn't of that dangerous, sophisticated Elvish beauty that had held them entranced in Rivendell and Lórien. It was strange to think of both coexisting as they did. And Sam saw beauty in all of it.

Rosie smiles with an edge of concern, something she seems to have picked up from her betrothed. "How are you enjoying the party, sir? It was awful generous of you to facilitate all of this."

"Very well, thank you," Frodo says. "And it is no trouble, really. It would be a shame not to put the Party Field to proper use now, not after everything that has happened." 

And as much as Frodo would extend whatever he was able to to Sam, there was furthermore a political message in a public celebration in such a significant place after the shadow cast by Sharkey.

A cool spring wind upsets Rosie's elaborate updo and she replaces braids and curls while she speaks: "Perhaps I didn't rightly understand, but weren't Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin coming to town for the party?"

"Oh. Yes. I am afraid they are occupied with their duties for now, but I expect they will arrive in time for the wedding." 

In fact Frodo had been in correspondence with his cousins about the engagement party, only to learn that they were in fact planning a bachelor party more spectacular than the Shire had ever seen. Fortunately Sam was ignorant to this particular Buckland tradition, and Frodo intended to keep it that way. He may have mixed up a few dates on his cousins' wedding invitations.

Rosie nods. "Of course, of course. And we just want to thank you again for taking time away from your own duties. Right, then! I really ought to go and see to it that my brothers don't have more than their fair share of the ale. Your good health, Mr. Frodo." And soon she's lost in the crowd.

Frodo smiles and wonders who 'we' is for a moment, until of course his mind catches up. He feels at once both happy and immensely sad.

The Shire is out of focus to him, and the only thing he can see clearly and consider truly real is Sam. And while it may sound somewhat hyperbolic, when he walks around the once homey halls of Bag End he fields blind.

As if sensing the pessimistic turn in his thinking, Sam appears on the horizon–clear, smiling, occupying the same world as Frodo while the rest of Hobbiton revels obliviously in the background.

Sam sits next to him and brings the sun in with him. Sometimes Frodo isn't sure how much of what he perceives is imagined, but there are times like this that he sees light and shadow as living entities, and Sam just glows.

"You oughtn't be so glum, Mr. Frodo," Sam says lightly. "It's a party, after all." Were he and Rosie in league against him now?

There's this too long pause before Frodo talks. "I am happy for you, Sam."

"Aye, but you aren't happy for yourself." Sam seems to realize he may have gone a little too far. "I just . . . wish you would be, is all. I don’t mean to step above—"

"I'm not in any way superior to you," Frodo preempts, a little snappish but it can't be helped.

But Sam's always been diplomatic. "I daresay we've come home to an awful mess, and that's saying something considering what we've been through. So I'm glad of the chance to finally catch my breath a bit." He's looking at Frodo, willing him to agree.

"Quite."

And Sam lets that go too. He takes Frodo's hand, the maimed one, in his as he's done so often, and he doesn't even stammer or blush about it anymore.

"They don't give much heed to you, Mr. Frodo. The folk here at home, I mean."

"Sam."

"Sometimes, it just seems to me as they don't appreciate what you've done for them."

"Oh, _indeed_ ," Frodo sighs. "You really mustn't put it all on me, Sam. It isn't as though there weren't vast armies and valiant kings and wizards involved. Not to mention you, my dear lad."

Sam tries to bite his tongue but fails. "But–"

"Please, Sam. I am quite content to be left alone in peace." Sam starts to frown. "Left alone by the Shire at large, I mean."

Sam just looks evenly at him, another difference from the way he respectfully averted his eyes most of the time before the Quest. "All right."

It's then that Tom Cotton swoops in to drag Sam away for some customary dance or other, and Frodo watches Sam watching him until the crowd shuts between them. 

He wonders if there was ever a time that Sam wasn't concerned about his well-being. Even as a child he'd been constantly anxious about doing or saying the wrong thing even before he fully understood the restrictions of propriety. Which was baffling to Frodo, who was raised by Bilbo without any heed to proper gentlehobbit behavior, and anyway he'd never much cared for what people thought of him.

Someone asks, "So, Mr. Frodo, what in the Shire did you Travelers get up to all that time you were gone?" 

"Well . . ."

"Treasure hunting, and the like. Leastways, that's what I've heard told."

"Well, no."

"Just like Mr. Bilbo before you, eh?"

At this point, Frodo has given up altogether on exasperation with his fellow hobbits and is mostly just glad to hear talk that doesn't revolve around the imminent doom of the world as they know it.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Frodo says.

"And I expect you'll be running for the office of Mayor proper when the time comes."

"I do not wish to be Mayor forever," Frodo says. "Someone else would be better-suited, I think."

It's a concept that baffles them.

"But, why . . ."

Frodo says, "Quite honestly, we were away for a long time, and it was a tiring journey, such that I haven't the energy for all that would be demanded of me as Mayor. Certainly there are numerous candidates with a real passion for it, but I am afraid I'm not one of them and I would much rather retire."

"Oh, aye," they say, but it's clear they don't fully understand.

And certainly Frodo can never accurately explain it to anyone, save perhaps Sam, but even he seemed able to harbor the weight of newcome worldliness while still caring for the simple pleasure of life. 

But Frodo can't reconcile the desolation of Gorgoroth with the brightly clad revelers dancing across the field in a whir, the sound of laughter with the illness that had taken him at the ford of Bruinen and in March and the terrifying feeling that he might never escape the pain of the past or the memory . . . 

There's so much life here, the sound of people somewhere in the distance and the setting sun is so blindingly exaggeratedly bright so that Frodo longs for the dark to take over. 

As the party seems to fade into the background Frodo becomes occupied with the lovely coolness of the breeze through the warm night, the smell of grass and that white flowering shrub that Sam surely knew the name of.

Frodo thinks of Bilbo's last birthday when everything had changed and he hadn't even known it. And he begins to regret not inviting his cousins if only for someone to talk to. Because right now Sam can't hover over Frodo and ask him if he's all right–right now and soon forever Sam will have a different set of priorities, and Frodo doesn't quite factor in in the way that he used to, no matter what Sam might say.

_Frodo stands on the threshold of Bag End, the door newly painted and flowers newly planted and he knows that it should give him hope, but he still hasn't shaken the darkness from earlier in the month._

_"Well!" Sam says, emerging from the smial. "That's the last of it. You'll find the pantry nicely stocked, courtesy of Sharkey's taste for decadence, I imagine. At least that's one good thing that's come out of all this."_

_"Yes."_

_And Sam's on him in a second: "What is it, Mr. Frodo? Begging your pardon, but you've been rather close since I got back."_

_"I suppose . . ." Frodo looks away, addresses a lovely, newly blooming flower. "Somehow in the back of my mind I always thought that coming home would make me feel normal again. But it hasn't, evidently."_

_"Frodo," Sam says quietly. He sighs. "And here I've been so caught up in ordering the repairs all up the Row and trekking across the Shire to watch things grow back, when I should've been here with you—"_

_"I am broken beyond repair, I'm afraid," Frodo says, and Sam seems to hear the pronouncement of doom in it. Frodo looks at him standing there hopefully in the doorway and knows in his heart that Sam belongs here. He's struck by the certainty of that, and he seems to see Sam change before his eyes into someone older and content, and there are happy children racing by and a lovely garden and more than anything the sense that Sam is utterly at peace._

_The vision fades and Frodo smiles. "Indeed, all your wishes are coming true."_

_"Not all of them."_

_"They will."_

_It's plain that Sam has something to say, but he's procrastinating._

_"When are you going to move in and join me, Sam?" Frodo says._

_Sam fixes him with this guilty look that should never ever darken his amiability._

_"There is no need to come yet, if you don't want to. But you know the Gaffer is close at hand, and he will be very well looked after by Widow Rumble."_

_Sam all but shuffles his feet, and Frodo hates how distraught he is. "It's not that, Mr. Frodo."_

_"Well, what is it?"_

_"It's Rosie, Rose Cotton."_

Sam dances with her in the middle of the field, and he's happy, and he's changed and yet unchanged. 

The sun is nearly set when Frodo removes himself to the storage shed on the edge of the field, and its rays set the mallorn leaves aflame. He can barely make out the faces of the people he passes during his escape.

The shed door closes and leaves him gratefully in darkness. This had been a favorite hideout of his in his tweens– somewhere to read in peace without the chance of being interrupted.

Frodo lets out a sigh, lets his hands stray to the jewel hanging around his neck. The ropes of metal are so much more intricate than any ring, and here in the nighttime it gives him inexplicable comfort. He closes his eyes and feels his mind relax and must find a way to continue this feeling forever.

A sharp splash of light interrupts him, followed by an out of breath Sam who closes the shed door behind him.

"I saw you leave and knew you couldn't have got far."

"You needn't bother with me."

"You're no bother. And I wouldn't mind it if you were."

"Sam," Frodo says. "You will have plenty to bother with before long."

"I don't 'bother' with things as don't need bothering with, Mr. Frodo. I take _care_ of things, like the garden, of course, and putting the Shire back in order. And you."

"And Rose."

"Yes, but." And Sam hasn't quite let that sink in, not yet. But it will no matter that he's still postponing it. 

The pause is so tense. Frodo can't hold his tongue: "You cannot fix me."

"I care for you more than I can rightly say," Sam says. "Like . . . like a plant that doesn’t bloom but carries the light of a flower hidden somewhere inside."

Frodo simply can't ignore it anymore, walks right up to Sam and holds his face and kisses him, doesn't even comprehend Sam's response until his back hits the wall of the shed and Sam makes a sweet desperate noise into the kiss, keeping Frodo there like he's afraid he'll run away and leave him in the end exactly like he will, kissing him so expressively while the party rages outside, muffled and jarringly joyous in the face of the sear of regret in Frodo's chest.

They part for a moment to breathe but Frodo won't allow anything logical to be said, pulls Sam roughly close by the front of his good shirt and Sam seems to agree with Frodo's unspoken wish, kisses him more softly this time and lets his fingers trace up Frodo's jaw and cheek and ear.

Something loudly happy erupts outside and Frodo kisses Sam harder to keep it at bay, loops his arms tight around Sam's neck and lets himself be pressed painfully wonderfully into the unstable wall.

It's so dizzying, and Frodo imagines he's falling into himself, glad to lose himself in anything and pulsing with such deeply underlying want…

Sam pulls away all of a sudden, harsh breath all mixed up with his words: "I don't know what to do with this… this, this thing about you that tears me up inside."

Frodo has an impulsive answer on that tip of his tongue until he really hears him. Just looks down and says softly, "Neither do I."

Sam's face falls. He reaches, has his hand on Frodo's arm. "I didn't mean–"

"You did mean it, Sam. You just regret that it's true."

Sam isn't angry. "I… I have to go, now."

"I know."

So Sam leaves the shed, leaves Frodo the standing in the doorway, immobile in the shadows while cheerful party lamps illuminate the cheerful dancers.

And Frodo is unable to return to that, is instead compelled to retreat even further and climbs the Hill up into the garden.

It's barren, still, despite all of Sam's tireless efforts. There's only so much they can heal in so short time. The ugly buildings are cleared away and everything is beginning to grow again, but it's still a strange feeling to walk through familiar paths that had once held such beauty and are now but an echo of it. 

Frodo used to relish the easy flow of memories that came with the sights and scents of the garden, memories of Bilbo telling him some tale of Númenor by the roses or Sam as a child playing where he oughtn't or Sam grown up and Bilbo long gone and tea on the sunny lawn and laughter. Or pensive thoughts alone under a cherry tree, lonesomeness and a longing to do something meaningful. And sometimes Frodo does wonder if he really had been destined to his fate all along.

Sam is there beside him so quickly.

Frodo doesn't turn to him. "You don't have to follow me everywhere, you know," he says.

"But I do." And Sam turns Frodo's face so gently but on his face is writ such determination.

Frodo can't stop himself from giving in to it, lets himself be led around the side of the Hill where the Party Field is out of sight.

Sam kisses him as soon as they round the bend, and Frodo hangs onto him for dear life while the touch of their lips overshadows the terrible truth of the world.

They're pressed so tightly together it's crushing, but Frodo just leans into it even more. He tries to say something in between kisses but Sam holds his face still and just kisses him harder. 

Frodo is breathless with want, and he can't be sure how but somehow his dizziness ends with Sam underneath him on the new grass. And Sam's hands are everywhere and Frodo is so hot with the feel of him. Sam's tongue in his mouth and Frodo's hands obsessively tight in Sam's hair because he never _wants_ to let go.

Frodo can feel that Sam's aroused, and there's no mistaking it when he arcs up against Frodo and keeps Frodo still with his hands hard on his hips. Frodo gasps at the bolt of pleasure that strikes, kisses Sam's neck and grinds down into him. The sound of Sam's voice murmuring who knows what makes Frodo's heart race.

After a blissful, strained eternity, Sam reorganizes them enough to undo the fastenings of Frodo's breeches, and Frodo follows suit and it's so fast and so easy the way they're touching each other and kissing open-mouthed. Frodo says something like _Please_ and Sam does something like kiss his nose and eyelids and chin and whispers _Please_ right back to Frodo's panting mouth.

The pressure builds, all twisted up in the twisted grief over Sam that consumes him always and the healing joy of him that's addicting, and Frodo can only breathe hard and press their foreheads together and beg and stroke Sam harder until he's just as desperate and squirming.

Sam comes with a shudder, eyes bright and latched onto Frodo's. He's barely caught his breath before pushing Frodo back to the ground and kissing him and bringing him to the edge too, and when Frodo finds release Sam swallows his cry with such lovely soft kisses. 

There's grass and sweat and guilt all over the place, and he sees Sam as a glowing being that looks directly into him. Frodo loves him somewhere between the shadow and the soul.

"I'll never want to leave you," Frodo says. "You understand that, don't you?"

And Sam does seem to understand, gone oddly serious and looking at him and clasping his hand and memorizing at all. Frodo hates that Sam has changed somewhere deep beneath the surface as much as Frodo has. 

Sam understands the world that Frodo now inhabits. But he can also leave it and go home in the end, and Frodo can't follow him there.

*


End file.
